December 7, 2004
47th Post
Whew, where to begin…
I assure whoever has been reading this that I have not been idle. In the past few months I have been developing infrastructure, direction, discussing topics with various folks that have proven very helpful, and have finalized a name for my thesis work: Here Be Dragons.
The phrase “Here Be Dragons”, along with many variants, traditionally appeared in the margins of early maps of the world, places the cartographers did not know about. It served as something of a warning (or challenge) to travelers.
For the better part of a century our map of the world has “filled up”. We have satellite photos and maps accurate to meters. This completion, arguably occurring at the beginning of the 20th century, had an impact on literature and science. It may not be a coincidence that psychology (that is, the mapping of the human psyche) started to develop as the cartographers ran out of places to place dragons on their physical maps. These fantastic beasts had been chased out of the world, making their homes in madmen (as described by the likes of Poe), institutions (as described by Kafka and Conrad), or into the beyond (as described by H.P. Lovecraft and many, many others). H.G. Wells got many birds with a preverbal boulder when he wrote “War of the Worlds”, a parable where a Martian invasion echoes European empire building and increased mechanization.
The Cassini mission to Saturn has a primary mission of exploring Titan, a moon whose smoggy atmosphere hides its surface, and may as well have “Here Be Dragons” written in big, bold lettering across its skies. I routinely check NASA’s site for the latest updates on the mission, and this interest may help explain some of my own motivation behind my own thesis work:
(Image taken from raw image site at saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm)
It’s also amazing how little we know about the ocean…dragons are found each time we go below the surface. 2/3 of our planet lies under miles of water, and there’s quite a bit going on we still don’t know about.
(Google image "Chimera Fish". Plus, this is not the strangest thing I've found in hunting for deep sea critters. Try here for a start.)
There’s more, but first, a little eye candy. Some panoramas of the spaces I have been cultivating:
I don’t like the summer look as much, but this is to demonstrate that yes, I can technically render color and textures in a 3D environment. However, it’s something I do not undertake lightly…I’m trying very hard not to fall into the wallpapered origami trap that commonly plagues 3D graphics.
Oh yeah, I can still do stereo. It's actually insturmental in getting the VR Boom working. More on that, as well as more musing and screenshots soon…